


game, set, match

by dupesoclock



Category: Apex Legends (Video Games)
Genre: (kinda? sorta), Established Relationship, Fluff and Angst, Hurt/Comfort, M/M, Secret Relationship, lifes all fun and games until you and your boyfriend gotta fight
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-09-30
Updated: 2019-09-30
Packaged: 2020-11-07 23:57:15
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,776
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20825951
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/dupesoclock/pseuds/dupesoclock
Summary: "don’t tell me you’re scared, compadre?”terrified, actually. “of course not. what’s a good fight without a monologue?” he always liked those.--all's fair in love and war, especially in the apex games. but as this match comes to an end, elliott 'mirage' witt can't help but feel he's got the short end of the stick.





	game, set, match

**Author's Note:**

> whats up apex fandom i come baring gifts
> 
> its like 4am when im finishing this so if its a little rushed in the middle its becausei wrote the comfort before the hurt and was too busy yearning to care
> 
> most of the worldbuilding for this fic is based on [this post](https://miiragecore.tumblr.com/post/187378641010/big-old-apex-legends-worldbuilding-post) that i made (feel free to rb and use as well btw), n the credit for this story goes to my dear friend carrion, who let me use their fic they wrote for me as a gift as a jumping off point for a warm up. this was supposed to be a _warm up_, y'all. i got out of control.

_ Round 3 — beginning ring countdown. _

Just great. Sat alone in Water Treatment with his back pressed against the wall, Mirage sighed to himself, rubbing his eyes with a forefinger and thumb before pressing the bridge of his nose. Two minutes to get his squad back, get them geared up as best they could be and take out this last squad. Sounded easy enough, right? ...I mean, when he ran up here to get cover as the ring closed in, most of the bins were open and there wasn’t much left to scavenge for, but they could find something, right? ...Yeah, unlikely. Well, they’d just have to make do. Wait, how many were left on that other squad? Did they know? He only had one weapon to spare, and there wasn’t any armour to spare that he’d seen- maybe if he stopped thinking and just doing they could work this out somehow, right? Sliding the Peacekeeper he’d been gripping rather tightly up until that point off of his lap and placing it on the floor, Mirage turned and looked out of the window he’d been sitting beside-

The respawn beacon in the distance had already been used. Great.

He paused, staring for a moment, before folding his arms against the windowsill and resting his head on top of it. Had he not been incredibly aware that an enemy squad could be, what, anywhere around where he was, he would have groaned. Or screamed. Either or worked. But here he was, literally on his knees, silently begging for some kind of break - everything about this match had been hell so far, it was ambush after ambush after shitty cheap death after running away like a coward again and again - as he looked up again, about to stand to his feet and start to formulate some sort of plan. As he did, though, the flash of the banner to the right of his vision caught his attention, and as he paid it mind for more than a split second, the pit of anxiety grew ever deeper. The Kill Leader was a familiar face, very familiar, donned in facemask, goggles and a stupid looking at that made him want to tug hard at the flaps on the side just by looking at it. Octane. Octavio Silva. His boyfriend.

Of course, that last part was a secret to almost everyone. Almost. A few people - Wraith, Ajay, hell, most of the other legends at this point - had figured out there was something between the two over the past few months they’d been together - between the two of them, it was very hard to keep secrets. The game runners couldn’t know, though, no matter what - it was against regulations or whatever, made things unprofessional and complicated. Like hell any of them listened though. At that moment, however, Mirage began to realise they had a point - the thought of gunning down the man he loved so dearly was something he couldn’t stomach, and yet, here he was.

He returned to sitting with his back against the wall, looking to the inside of his arm where he’d kept the banners of his squadmates safe and sound, waiting for an opportunity that very well could never come in this match. Bringing a leg close to his chest, he sighed and rested his arm across it, letting his hand hang limply. ...Someone up there had to have it out for him, right? Either whoever was running the show or some higher power looked at him and thought ‘hey, let's go ahead and ruin this guy’s day’ and then proceeded to metaphorically pick up something long and sharp and shove it right up his— 

The sound of movement outside brought him out of his thoughts, and Mirage froze for a few seconds, listening to the sound of very distant metal against concrete. Very carefully, he moved his head to glance out of the window, and sure enough, witness the handsome devil and he shall appear. Running into Water Treatment from the direction of the respawn beacon, gun in hand, Octane closed in, alone, and ducked into a building just under the banners. Was he trying to go for a respawn too? ...Did that mean he was alone as well? Great. Absolutely perfect. For anyone else, that wouldn’t have been a sarcastic statement - it  _ was  _ great, a 1v1 was always better than a 1v3 - and yeah, sure, in his case it was better than nothing, but on the other hand, this also could not have been any more of a worst-case scenario for his emotional turmoil. 

Placing one hand behind him against the wall to push himself to his feet and the other grabbing the Peacekeeper still laying on the floor next to him, Mirage stood up and fiddled with the shotgun in his grip for a second or two before strapping it on his back and running a hand through his hair. He could send a decoy running from the base of the stairs and out of the door to the respawn and hope he’d notice, and then sneak around the back? That seemed like the best course of action. His nerves were tangible as he slowly walked to the stairwell just across from him, footsteps almost echoing in his ears with the silence of everything around him. One step, two steps, until eventually, he reached the bottom and shot off a finger gun. A decoy deployed and ran straight forward with expert accuracy to his form, and as it did, he gave a shaky, whispered command.

“Time to go bamboozle.”

As the decoy set off out of the door, he ran back up the stairs, skipping a few and running down the hallway. It was so quiet yet so loud around him, he could almost hear the humming of the distant ring that made him even more away of who he was, where he was, and just what the hell he was doing. Such is the life of a legend. He ran around and grabbed the rope that led down to the lower floor, sliding down and landing in the water below, where he crouched to hide and listen. Silence. Then loud, echoing gunshots. More silence. Then, from the building just across from the one he was hiding in, Mirage heard a quiet laugh.

“I know you’re around here somewhere, compadre. Don’t make me come find you.”

He almost had to laugh. Octane did tend to have a flair for the dramatic, but this was something straight out of a superhero movie. One of the many things that Mirage loved him for - one of the many things that was going to make this so much harder. Gathering himself with a quick and sharp inhale of breath, Mirage turned and grabbed the ledge of the ground floor around the small circle he was hiding in, and pulled himself up, before quickly skipping and pressing his back against the wall next to their pair of twin doors that were no longer on their hinges from earlier in the match.

He could hear his heartbeat in his ears now, every sound was amplified in his anxiety. This always happened when a match was reaching its conclusion, but this was somehow even worse, nauseating, even. Still, he had to push through - he had no choice. Leaning slowly to his right, the trickster looked out of the door, spotting his opponent impatiently pacing around, peaking around doors and such, before he ducked back into cover. Well, if this was being recorded (as it always was), might as well make it entertaining, right? Any excuse to stall this out was a good one, who was he kidding here?

“Couldn’t help but notice you were on your own. How hard is it to keep a squad alive?”

No response for a moment, before there was another laugh - shorter, sharper. “Ah, si. But considering how I’m not getting shot right now, the same can be said for you, yes?”

Mirage clicked his tongue. “Ah, guilty. You got me.”

“But then again… you’re not shooting at me, either. Don’t tell me you’re  _ scared _ , compadre?”

Terrified, actually. “Of course not. What’s a good fight without a monologue?” He always liked those.

“Of course.” Octane’s voice was louder now, closer. “You know you can’t wait all day, though.”

“Oh, I know. But just long enough to get the avad- a- atvad- ...upper hand.”

There was a quiet scoff, loud enough now that Mirage knew that he was just coming through that door, and sure enough there he was, twirling an RE-45 pistol around his finger. Octane paused for a moment (for dramatic effect, no doubt, the crowd-pleasing idiot he was) before turning his head, grabbing the pistol’s handle with two hands, and opening fire.

Even with the protection of his armour (which didn’t do much; a hop up attachment ate away at it like it was nothing), the ferocity of the pistol’s fire rate tore into his chest and caused him to stumble, but not enough to make him lose his thinking. Mirage ran a hand sloppily up the holo-pilot deployers along the opposite arm, and the moment they duplicated he disappeared. As Octane quickly reloaded his mag and looked around, momentarily bamboozled, the trickster turned and ran out of the door behind him, quickly circling right with his hand trailing along the side of the building and turning right into the door, just behind Octane now.

He pressed the barrel of his Wingman against the back of Octane’s head, as the decoys disappeared into nothing more than faint memories. “Well, great match but, uh, I think this one’s mine.” Pressing his finger against the trigger, he hesitated for a moment. He could have said so much more, waxed on and on with his Mirage persona, but the less talk there was, the easier it would be to get the job done.

Octane, however, was never one to make things easier. That moment’s hesitation was all he needed to spin around and grab the gun from Mirage’s hands and yank it out, tossing it across the room. In the moment of shock that followed, because he could move to grab the Peacekeeper from his back, he was stunned with a hard elbow to the bottom of the chin that sent him off balance and to the floor. Enough time for the speedster to pull out a small green tube and jam it directly into his chest, running forward and jumping, grabbing the R-99 SMG from his back as he did.

The last thing Mirage saw was the butt of the rifle coming down directly on his incredibly handsome face. The last thing he heard was the call of an announcer as consciousness evaded him. The last thing he felt was a gentle pat on his chest that sent a jolt of pain through him.

* * *

When Mirage woke up again, the first thing he did was wince and suck air through his teeth. Even with the respawn system in place, it still hurt to all hell when you came back, especially from a beating that hard. 

“So, you’re finally awake, huh?”

He paused for a moment, before sighing and smiling to himself as he looked over to the bed beside him, at a familiar, unmasked face, complete with messy green hair curling around one side of his face - dark brown roots were growing back in now, since the last dye job - and a shitty grin which was almost contagious. “Yeah, guess I am. How long have you been there?”

“Well, it’s not like I can go anywhere, amigo. You got me pretty good in there.”

“Says the guy who unloaded a full clip into my chest. I didn't land anything on you- hell, you shouldn't even _be_ here.”

Octane laughed, and shrugged a little, half-ignoring him and adjusting the position he was laying in on his side. “Well, I’d say we can call it even.”

“Bullcrap.”

There was another laugh (with a quiet snort somewhere in there that made Mirage smile to himself, smitten) and a pause, before Octane sat up in the medical bed, throwing his legs over the side and stretching his arms above his head. He looked behind him at the door to the medical bay for a moment, before standing to his feet and quickly shuffling over to sit on the edge of Mirage’s bed with a smirk.

“Hey, hey, watch it.” Mirage moved away from him a little, giving his former competitor a gentle shove. “What if someone sees?”

“You’re worried about that? I’m literally just sitting here, compadre. It could be much worse, like…” He threw his legs onto the bed in over-dramatic fashion, and slowly leaned back to rest his head on Mirage’s shoulder. “How’s that?”

“I, ah- that’s gonna get us chewed out to hell.” 

“But the question is, are you gonna stop me?”

There was a brief pause, before his voice lowered as he responded. “...No.”

“Thought so.” Octane hummed a little, almost smugly, leaning his head into Mirage’s neck and closing his eyes. He let one leg hang over the side of the bed and curled one up, bouncing it and rocking the bed as he did. “Besides, you can hear them coming from down the hall. Just say the word and I’ll bolt. It’s not that hard.”

It didn’t take long after that for Mirage to give up and slowly move his arm up and over to bring him in closer, with Octane lifting his head to rest it on top of his shoulder, turning inwards slightly and resting an arm very gently across his chest — very gently, as to not make the gunshot phantom pains any worse. “You know I hate you, right?”

“Aww, that’s the nicest thing you’ve ever said to me, mi príncipe.” He looked up at Mirage through his eyelashes, his voice dripping with playful sarcasm, before he chuckled and moved to gently kiss the bottom of his jaw. “I know you don’t mean that.”

“Y-yeah, no, I could never.” Mirage adjusted himself a little, moving down the bed to rest his cheek on top of Octane’s head, unable to suppress a gentle smile as he felt the other legend’s breathing on his neck. He closed his eyes, not really planning on sleeping but simply enjoying the one rare, peaceful moment they could have, here in the medical bay.

“Hey, Elliott?”

They’d been in silence for a few minutes - the longest round of silence for either of them, someone may joke - before Octavio spoke up again. Elliott opened one eye and looked down, cocking an eyebrow. “Yeah?”

“I love you. A lot.”

“I love you too, Tav.”

There was another brief pause, as Octavio gently lifted his hand and started tracing invisible lines across Elliott’s chest, gently running his fingertips across the skin. “...Sorry for fucking you up in there.”

He closed his eyes again and hummed. “I think I’d call turning me into a human pincushion, slamming me in the nose with the butt of your gun and elbowing me in the jaw a little more than fuckin’ me up- ow!” His eyes shot open and he slapped the hand away that had gently reached up to poke the bridge of his nose.

The speedster laughed like a little kid would, sticking his tongue out in a playful manner as he perked up a little before settling down into a soft smile, one that made his face light up and odd coloured eyes glow so brilliantly that when Elliott looked down again, the pained frown on his face softened.

He reached out and gently brushed some green curls out of Octavio’s eyes as he looked up at him. “Sorry for knocking you around a bit too, sunshine.”

Almost as a cat would, he leaned into the touch and rested his cheek on Elliott’s head for a moment, before resting his chin on the side of his chest. “You look like you’ve seen better days, mi amor. Sleep.”

“I feel like it. ...You are gonna move before anyone gets here, right?”

“No promises, El.”

“Of course.” Honestly, he didn’t even realise how tired he still was, and a mixture of that and the sheer ease he felt meant that whatever worries he had before were momentarily gone. Right now, he just wanted to be with Octavio. 

Elliott closed his eyes again, one arm behind his head and the other resting on Octavio’s back, and was asleep again within minutes, in a place that felt like home, and thousands of miles away from the fight of the Apex Games and whatever life came with that.


End file.
